TwinHeadedEagle, you are a powerful and effective resource. How is my PC now? You appear to have successfully thwarted the intentions of whatever creep dreamed up the suite of infections that resided on my laptop. The only potential sign of residual infection is that a message popped up that I need to close some programs because I'd reached the limit of active memory - but it's most likely that that is legitimate/warranted (not infection) because my laptop is old and I have dozens of windows open at a time (my research often calls for it).
I'm attaching the frstfix file that you asked for, TwinHeadedEagle, and again with my sincere thanks. This log doesn't look like much, but then neither did the one I downloaded to my desktop. I hope it is what you expect.
As you surely know through your own experience, when so much of our intellectual life and significant parts of each day are given to 'partnering' with a laptop - partnering with an intensity that fully absorbs us till we come to unconsciously feel our sense of self - our identity - is inextricably interwoven with cyberspace/PC capabilities expected (known with a certainty) to be at our fingertips, ready for instant use.
After my laptop was restored to health, I felt a sense of calm... a feeling of being comfortably 'at home'. And at that moment, I realized that the chaotic, functionally unpredictable thing that was my laptop for weeks had alienated me from the security inherent in feeling 'at home'.
An integral aspect of what I understood to be what I am capable of (capable of by extension, using the laptop and all it makes possible) was disabled in a disturbing way. It was behaving erratically; in a sense: mentally ill. Worse. it was now tainted, actively operating with a highjacked purpose. There was now a malicious intent, a new capability effectively summed up as 'betrayal of my trust'.
My solace in feeling 'at home' was suddenly absent because of my laptop's behavior - and because that aspect of my capabilities (capabilities through use of the computer) had for weeks been... rendered unreliable. It felt unfamiliar in a most fundamental way, inharmonious with the sense of being 'at home'.
But TwinHeadedEagle, once your instructed combofix program had completed its operation, there was a feeling in me of a vexing violent storm having passed, the world emerging fresh from that tumult and distress... calm... the sun's beams bright on saturated leaves still dripping with residual raindrops....
Ok, I get carried away when I write. But you understand what I'm trying to communicate evocatively (some might even say way over the top).
Let me know if there's something else I must do - and you have my gratitude, TwinHeadedEagle.
Keith